If you use ALSA for sound on your system the functions
contained in the script presented here can be used to get and
set the volume on your system.
You might use this if you had a monitoring script running
and wanted to raise the volume when you signal an alarm
and then lower it again to the previous volume.
more>>

If you have a process ID but aren't sure whether it's valid, you can use the most unlikely of candidates
to test it: the kill command. If you don't see any reference to this on the kill(1) man page, check the info
pages. The man/info page states that signal 0 is special and that the exit code from kill tells whether a
signal could be sent to the specified process (or processes). more>>

It seems that lots of people are talking about Toshiba's NB100 mini-laptop but they are just talking about it appearing in the UK market in October. What The Register has to say is as good as any. more>>

If you've ever thought about becoming a member of the Linux Foundation — the not-for-profit organization responsible, among other things, for keeping Lead Penguin Linux Torvalds a'coding — then you might know it's been a bit of an expensive proposition in the past. The door has been opened a bit wider for individuals, however, as the Foundation is now offering an individual affiliate membership for the low, low price of just one easy payment of $49 per year. more>>

Until Chrome came along, Google's Master Mobile Plan didn't quite add up. Now it does. Chrome -- Google's new superbrowser -- is cream on the top of a new mobile software stack. Let's call it GACL, for Gears, Android and Chrome on Linux. more>>

Cisco — rulers of all things network — have set their sights on something new, and they've gone out and gotten it. The it in this particular case is Jabber, Inc., the company responsible for building an enterprise offering around XMPP — the "Jabber" protocol — and the go out and getting happened yesterday, as Cisco announced that it intends to buy the 54-employee company before the end of next summer. more>>

As some of you know, Google released a new browser recently, something called Chrome. The idea is/was to fix everything that is wrong with browsers and make the Web browsers a tool to run applications. As opposed to just viewing Web pages. I'm being a bit silly here, but Chrome is built to be more like an operating system than a plain old browser. There's more but it's all only for Windows users since a Linux version doesn't yet exist. Wait . . . What? Check out this screenshost (click it for a full screen view). more>>

The mobile phone industry is nothing if not cutthroat, with each manufacturer — not to mention provider — doing everything they can to show up and stomp out its competition. What isn't usually seen, though, is an old-fashioned public call-out. more>>

The promise of zero or near-zero latency audio is a huge asset to the the Linux operating system. Sometimes, achieving super low-latency audio is tricky, but not if your kernel is hard-realtime capable. Cut your latency to under 3 ms with this tutorial. more>>

There is a clear pattern to open source's continuing rise. The first free software that was deployed was at the bottom of the enterprise software stack: GNU/Linux, Apache, Sendmail, BIND. Later, databases and middleware layers were added in the form of popular programs like MySQL and Jboss. More recently, there have been an increasing number of applications serving the top of the software stack, addressing sectors like enterprise content management, customer relationship management, businessintelligence and, most recently, data warehousing.

But all of these are generic programs, applicable to any industry: the next frontier for free software will be vertical applications serving particular sectors. In fact, we already have one success in this area, but few people know about it outside the industry it serves. Recent events mean that may be about to change. more>>

As a Linux evangelist, I find myself in an interesting quandary. There are many new netbooks being sold with Linux pre-installed, but often the way Linux is installed is not what I’m used to seeing. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I understand the reasoning for custom interfaces, but it has some disadvantages. more>>

Slax is a fast, small, portable Linux distribution taking a modular approach that gives you the ability to easily add on your favorite software. Just download a module with the software, copy it to Slax -- no installing, no configuring.

It must be Hacker Day here at Breaking News — as though the Large Hadron Collider being hacked wasn't enough, it has now been revealed that the group known as Anonymous has successfully hacked into the Yahoo email account of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin and released at least some of its contents into the wild. more>>